A friend of presidents, industrialists, and statesmen… A sailor whose career began on coal fired steamships but went on to witness the surrender of Japan following the use of the first atomic bomb… A pilot who became the first man to fly over the North and South Poles, and an admiral who charted a landmass fully half the size of the United States itself… Admiral Richard E. Byrd was one of the world’s last great explorers.
On October 20, 1924 an explosion occurred in the forward turret of the light cruiser USS Trenton. The event shocked the public, especially given that a very similar accident had already occurred aboard the Battleship Mississippi the previous June.